Dog owner cannot claim damages for emotional distress

A Morris County woman whose dog was mauled to death in front of her by another dog cannot claim damages for emotional distress, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The unanimous decision affirmed a longstanding law that treats dogs as property. The court determined that while dog owners who witness the violent death of a pet may claim damages for its replacement, they cannot seek additional damages for trauma as they could for an immediate relative.

The ruling comes in the case of Joyce McDougall, who was walking her Maltese-poodle mix, Angel, on a street in Morris Plains in June 2007 when a larger dog came growling and snarling from the home of Charlot Lamm, grabbed Angel by the neck and shook her violently until she died.

McDougall, who said she acquired Angel 10 years earlier and had grown deeply attached to the dog, sued Lamm for damages. A trial judge awarded McDougall $5,000 for the replacement of the dog, but ruled that she is not entitled to damages for emotional distress.

State law lets people seek damages for emotional distress if they witness a family member suffer a traumatic death or serious bodily injury. In appealing the trial judge’s ruling, McDougall argued that the same principle applies to her case because she had established a loving relationship with her dog.

The justices, however, ruled 5-0 to uphold the initial decision.

“Although we recognize that many people form close bonds with their pets, we conclude that those bonds do not rise to the level of a close familial relationship or intimate, marital-like bond,” they wrote in a 39-page decision.

Lamm’s attorney, Brian O’Toole, said the court made the only decision it could possibly make, noting that emotional distress claims are limited to those who witnessed the death of, or traumatic injury to, a close relative.

“To expand that to a pet would really have been a stretch,” O’Toole said.

O’Toole said he was personally torn by the decision because he was sympathetic to McDougall. He said he himself is a pet lover whose dog sleeps with him in bed.

From a public policy standpoint, however, allowing damages for emotional distress in pet cases “would have caused a lot of chaos in the legal system,” he said.

Pets are not the only personal property that humans can be attached to, he said. It can be distressing to see the destruction of a precious painting, an heirloom or any property with a sentimental value, he said.

Allowing the owners of such items to seek damages for emotional-distress would vastly expand the possibilities for seeking claims, he said.

Tuesday’s ruling is consistent with the policies in almost every state in the country. Florida, Louisiana and Hawaii are the only states that allow emotional-distress claims in pet cases, he said.

McDougall’s attorney, Lewis Stein, said there is no dispute that his client suffered emotional injury after witnessing the violent death of her beloved dog.

“But [the judiciary’s] fear and lack of confidence in the jury’s role to separate real from imagined injury has supported a policy of restricting those claims,” he said. “We tried to overcome those fears, but were unsuccessful.”

Email: markos@northjersey.com

To read the full decisionclick here or paste this link into your browser http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/supreme/A9910McDougallvLamm.pdf